When a gust of wind hits a broken bone, you feel it.

There's a form of selling out. It's necessary. You have to become edible for people in Texas. You have to become edible for the Christian right, for mass audiences.

I'm still in the middle of the transition. I'm still in man-boy mode. And that won't go away for a while. But it's a fun time to be in, because it's very rare that people get to work through this time. It's rare to see a John Cusack in Say Anything. It's rare that you'd find an actor right in the cusp of the child-to adult transition, just got through puberty, just getting into a different way of life. There's few movies like that, and few roles like that, so it's going to be tough to pick and choose. I guess the goal is good people, work with good people.

I want my audience to know me for my work, not because of who I'm dating or what drugs I'm on or what club I went to.

We did this two-week boot camp before we filmed the movie. I got to know everybody in the group and we became friends. We got really tight throughout those two weeks.

Sometimes perception is almost more important than the skill level of an actor. And if you give too much away, you have nothing to take for yourself and put onscreen. If people feel like they know you too well, they won't be able to indentify with the character you're trying to portray. Or they'll feel that you're just playing yourself, and then you just become a personality actor. And that's the death of any actor.

To my mind, talent doesn't really exist. Talent is like a card player's luck. It is motivation, ambition, and luck. It's just a drive to be the best. I think acting is a con game.